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Our Nation's Carrier Air Wings

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Our Nation's Carrier Air Wings Wings of Gold Our Nation’s Carrier Air Wings Special Report By RADM Matthew Moffit, USN (Ret.) In 1910 an intrepid young aviator, Eugene Ely, performed The FA-18E/F Super Hornet continues to receive advanced the first airplane takeoff from a ship, the USS Birmingham. upgrades required to sustain its technological edge against po- Two months later, in January 1911, Ely made history again by tential adversaries. As the FA-18A-D Hornets leave the Na- completing the first successful shipboard landing aboard the vy’s inventory the F-35C Lightning will make its debut and cruiser, USS Pennsylvania. The century-plus that followed has add to the expanding war-fighting network within the carrier brought about extraordinary developments in the performance, strike group. The EA-18G Growler is advancing the air wing’s safety and war fighting capability of what is now arguably the airborne electronic warfare capability, working in conjunction premier instrument of America’s global influence and striking with the other sensors and shooters within the strike group. The power – the U.S. Navy’s carrier air wings. And through those remainder of the wing will closely resemble today’s configura- years the achievements and advancements came at a high price tion with upgrades to existing systems, including weapons. for thousands of pilots and supporting crews – in peacetime, Improvements in surveillance and detection are integrated as well as war. It must also be noted that many allies and within the E-2D Hawkeye as it replaces the E-2C Hawkeye. partners made their own contributions to the evolution of sea- An expanded helicopter footprint employs the MH-60R for based aviation that was critical to the success of today’s carrier Strike Group submarine defense and surface surveillance re- air wings. connaissance and strike, a role previously filled by the S-3B Today, the carrier air wing is at the very tip of the spear and SH-60B/F. The MH-60S replaces the CH-46D, SH-60F for a Navy that protects our nation from attack and preserves and HH-60H for search and rescue (SAR, Special Operations America’s strategic influence throughout the world. These Na- Forces (SOF) support, small boat defense as well as filling a val forces uniquely provide U.S. leaders credible options that logistics role within the Strike Group. The CMV-22B Osprey allow them to protect the nation’s prosperity, defend its secu- will recapitalize the Carrier Onboard Delivery logistics mis- rity, assure its allies and partners, and deter its adversaries. The sion and enable a flexible sea-based logistics support concept breadth of challenges our nation faces demands a range of naval unheard of before. A future unmanned ISR (Intelligence, options. The carrier air wing, in conjunction with the nuclear Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and refueling system, now powered aircraft carrier, consistently proves itself as among the called the MQ-25A, will enable tanker-configured Super Hor- most available, credible and reliable of those options. nets to reconfigure and focus on their core strike-fighter mis- In every decade since the historic firsts of Naval Aviation the sions. carrier air wing has been the beneficiary of the Navy’s dedica- In an ever-increasing net-enabled world, where netted weap- tion to the technological advancement of its combat capabil- ons, sensors and platforms will be a critical component of the ity, all while leading the evolution of the maritime war-fighting carrier air wing, electronic warfare and cyber capability, will domain. evolve and become a much more important war-fighting ca- The Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier pability. You can’t talk about the carrier air wing without speaking to After the Cold War the Navy had the foresight to embrace the the vessel that allows it to operate throughout the world. The value of electronic attack and advanced its capabilities as oth- reach and effectiveness of the carrier air wing relies, of course, ers “reprioritized” theirs. The Navy’s dominance in airborne on the capabilities and numbers of the carriers themselves. In electronic attack is unsurpassed and will continue to enable and the early years of the 21st Century the aircraft carrier continues enhance the Navy’s war-fighting capability. The carrier-based to be central to maintaining a forward presence, deterrence, sea EA-18G provides capabilities invaluable to both the Navy and control, power projection, maritime security, humanitarian as- the Joint Force in contested environments and will continue to sistance and disaster response. Today’s Nimitz and Ford class do so far into the future. As with all the air wing aircraft pay- aircraft carriers aren’t just the biggest warships in history; they loads, the Next Generation Jammer employed on the Growler are also the signature platform from which American military will be a critical asset to the carrier air wing’s future success. power is generated – and in conjunction with the carrier air wing, arguably our country’s primary conventional asymmetric Carrier Air Wing Challenges military advantage. Over the last decade, Naval Aviation and, specifically, carri- er-based Naval Aviation, have been active, conducting combat The Carrier Air Wing – Present and Future operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, in addition to Since inception the carrier air wing has been able to rein- stability and presence missions elsewhere around the world. vent itself through evolutionary operating concepts and tactics They have supported numerous units on the ground and been as new, more capable aircraft and weapons became available. available to respond to immediate tasking when requested. Today’s air wing consists of multi-mission strike fighters, elec- Consider that since 9/11 carrier air wing aircraft have flown tronic attack aircraft, airborne early warning aircraft, and sea more than 200,000 combat missions. And during the first 54 combat/anti-submarine helicopters, along with critical logistics days of the campaign against ISIS, combat aircraft from the enablers. And in the not too distant future we will see increas- USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) provided all of the coali- ing numbers of unmanned aircraft as well. The future carrier air tions’ airborne strike capability as land bases were not avail- wing will require the complementary offensive and defensive able. capabilities of all the assets within it. This continuous support has come at a cost across the air 16 Wings of Gold Summer WOG.indd 16 7/11/2016 2:18:04 PM In the Philippine Sea in June 2016 a combined formation of aircraft from Carrier Air Wings Five and Nine, pass by USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). Stennis and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), not pictured, were conducting dual aircraft carrier strike group operations in the 7th Fleet in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (Photo by LT Steve Smith) wing’s aircraft. Operations and maintenance support is bud- While it is commonly held that remanufacturing can solve geted based on certain assumptions about use-rates of aircraft the short-term inventory challenge, history tells us that and the carrier strike fighters have been used at a much higher a combination of production and remanufacturing is re- rate than was planned and budgeted for. While Overseas Con- quired to address a much longer-term inventory challenge. tingency Operations (OCO) funding was supposed to offset the With the budgetary pressures that exist across the Depart- increased utilization in the combat zone, the amount of OCO ment of the Navy, the fiscal options are limited for keeping provided wasn’t enough to compensate for the utilization rate the necessary inventory of strike fighters on the Navy’s increases. carriers. Currently, Naval Aviation leadership has found it As most budgeters know, a program is rarely fully funded necessary to keep the Super Hornet line producing while because offsets have to be made to balance budgets across all repairing a limited number of Hornets, and putting all the DoD requirements. As a result, a certain amount of “risk” is Super Hornets through a Service Life Extension Program assumed. As the budgets are moved forward and approved (SLEP), in addition to procuring F-35Cs. Having the Su- they haven’t completely mitigated the increased utilization. per Hornet production line active will also mitigate critical Every aircraft has a specific design life measured in multiple parts availability for the SLEP process. ways. The most commonly referenced metric is flight hours. In the requirements phase of the aircraft procurement journey Summary the Navy specifies how many flight hours they need from the We are witness to an evolved 100-year war-fighting aircraft they are purchasing. In the case of the Hornets and capability unmatched today, and very much admired, in Super Hornets that number is 6,000. Historically, the planners our carrier air wings. Naval Aviation has successfully estimate how many hours per year the average aircraft will be transformed this sea-based capability from an experiment flown and then amortized that to an average number of years by a daring aviator to a world-influencing technological the aircraft will be in the inventory. So, in the end, the planners marvel. Carrier air wings are the very tip of America’s can determine when the replacement aircraft should arrive in spear and prove themselves each and every day. Just as the fleet. (As you can surmise there is quite a bit of spreadsheet with the Navy’s nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the car- work done to manage all the inventories.) In the case of the rier air wings are constantly evolving, bringing on more Navy’s Hornet, which entered the inventory in the early 1980s, capability to outpace potential adversaries while provid- the F-35C is its designated replacement.
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